Kevin Muldoon

I posted my first impressions of the Eee PC last week. That post was written after just a few hours of getting the Eee so I thought it would be good to do a follow up of the laptop having now owned it for about 9 days.

Having used it quite a bit in the last week my opinion has not changed. I am still pleased with the purchase and overall I think its a great device however there are a lot of things that Asus could improve upon. Most of which are from a software point of view so I guess some of the gripes are with linux and not Asus.

The Asus EEE PC

• The Keyboard – With a device as small as the Eee it is to be expected that the keyboard is equally as small. It’s not too bad to type on. You find yourself touch typing quite a lot and I still make errors sometimes when typing. For example, when I try to type too quick I look back at the sentence and see that some letters are missing or I have put in some extra letters by accident. This isn’t really a complaint, more of an observation. I really think Asus have done as good as they could have with the room they have to play with. I wouldn’t recommend doing any serious typing on this though. If for some reason you need to write a lot on the Eee then I’d pick up a cheap portable full sized usb keyboard and hook it up.
• Default Software Programs – I have to say that all of the software that comes installed with the Eee works great. OpenOffice is very handy, pigeon messenger integrates well with msn and yahoo and the thunderbird email client works great. OpenOffice takes up the most room on your solid state drive but it’s also one of the most useful so it’s probably best to keep it. Nearly everything in the learning tab is geared towards kids so many of you might consider removing it however these learning programs only take up a few meg each so there’s not much point.
• Additional Software & Advanced Settings – Asus provide semi regular updates on all of the default programs however if you want to install or remove any other programs you need to do it yourself. This is one of the things Asus really needs to improve upon. I can see the logic in Asus making everything really user friendly and providing Eee users with the applications they will use 90% of the time however they have made installing everything else a bit trickier.

  To install and remove programs you need to open a terminal and type in ‘sudo synaptic’ to bring up a user friendly box where you can decide what you want on your Eee. That isn’t exactly a hard command to remember however there is no reference to it in the user manual. Thankfully the EeeUser Wiki has the answer to everything you need to know but I don’t think that Eee customers should have to rely on non-Asus sites to find stuff out and thats the case for most problems. I know that this method is common in linux however surely they could have modified the xandros operating system to make things easier for customers who aren’t computer noobs but who are not familiar with progamming ie. Joe Average! For example, the default xandros setting is easy mode. This is the operating system with all the icons etc. You can switch to a more familar desktop background however once again you need to head to the terminal and enter some commands. If you are familiar with following basic commands etc this isn’t too much of a hassle but again, it’s little things like this which are making the Eee limited for some customers.

• Backup is good – The Eee comes with a user partition on top of a system partition. If something messes up you can hit F9 on booting up and clear the Eee to the default installation within minutes. If you are saving most things to your SD card then this means that you can restore factory defaults anytime without worry about losing anything. I spent a few days changing settings and removed the user partition so that I could try and install XP and during this time something messed up and the Eee couldn’t load up. Since I had removed the user partition I could not use the restore method and instead had to create a boot drive from the asus dvd but this was really easy. In that respect Asus have done a really good job.
• The Solid State Drive – I know that SSD’s have a limited lifespan compared to standard hard drives however I really can’t wait til they are the norm. The eee loads up quickly and applications load really quickly too. Prices of flash drives are coming down to down so expect to see solid state drives more and more in laptops.
• To XP or not XP – I’m considering making my Eee dualboot with both Xandros and XP. XP is apparently very to install with an external DVD drive however since I don’t have one at the moment I have had to try and boot from a 2GB usb thumb drive. I nlited my XP files but it wouldn’t boot so I’ll need to try again. Installing XP on my SSD card would make XP run much much slower however it would mean that Xandros wouldn’t have the recovery partition (Xandros is so quick I really want to keep it for general browsing the web and emailing etc).

Later on in the year I will probably get another sub notebook, once which comes with windows installed. I think that something with an 8.9″ screen would still be as portable but would be a more all round machine. I do sometimes wish that the Eee had XP installed by default, I do sometimes wish it had a higher resolution and a bigger hard drive but for £250 the Eee remains a bargain.

If you are thinking about buying the Eee and have some questions about it please let me know

This morning my brand new 4gb Eee 701 PC was delivered * (for details of my order please read my previous post)

I’ve only been playing around with it for a few hours and this post represents my initial impressions of the laptop so far ie. I haven’t used it extensively as yet so please bear this in mind when reading this review.

I have taken pictures of the unboxing, the initial configuration screens and the default xandros operating screens so that potential eee pc owners can have a preview of what they can expect. If you click on any of these pics in this article you can see the full sized image (1,000 pixels).

Unboxing the Eee PC

It will come as no surprise to most that the box for a laptop with a 7″ screen is equally as small.

The box contains :

• The Eee PC
• The Eee battery
• A plug which has a UK 3 prong and a USA 2 prong connection (very handy!)
• A quick user guide
• A user manual
• A warranty for your Eee

Even though I knew the Eee would be small, I was surprised at how small and compact this device is. It really is a cool notebook and although I finally decided on getting a black Eee, I’m happy with the white one I ordered. The plastic casing does feel a bit cheaper than the casing on some more premium notebooks but that’s expected from something which only cost £249.99. Don’t get me wrong though, whilst it does feel a little cheaper, it’s still got a good build quality.

Unboxing the Eee : Pictures

One thing I was impressed about was the power adaptor. The adaptor comes with a UK 3 prong connector however if you remove this it reveals a USA 2 prong plug connection. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m taking my Eee to New York in a few weeks so this is an incredibly handy feature and it makes you wonder why more UK companies don’t offer this with their products.

Initial Setup Screen

When you power up your Eee for the first time you need to agree to Asus’s terms and conditions and enter your name and set the time etc. Theres only 5 screens and start to finish will probably take you less than a minute!

The Xandros Operating System

The Eee comes pre loaded with the Xandros operating system, a linux varient which has been modified to suit the Eee’s needs. The software has a childlike feel to it and looks like it would be more suitable in a PDA or even a childrens computer (which Asus actually market this as too!). This is not neccessarily a bad thing when you think of it as the majority of people mainly use their computers for email, messaging and browsing the web and all of these are on the first screen.

In total there are 6 tabs :

• Internet
• Work
• Learn
• Play
• Settings
• Favourites

The Xandros operating tabs

It is possible to install XP on the Eee however you may want to try out the Advanced Desktop Mode which has more in common with regular desktop environments (The default xandros setup with all the graphical icons and tabs etc is known as easy mode).

So what’s my overall experience with Xandros? Well, so far so good. The Eee had trouble finding my router at first but after deleting the profile and creating it again it works perfectly so any problem was just me setting it up wrong (although I have heard some people having issues with it). It is all in all a basic interface but it works well and does what you need it to do.

Using the Eee

Browsing with the Eee is quite good. The default resolution is 800×480 pixels. Everything is clear however browsing most sites results in horizontal scroll bars but that’s kinda unavoidable with a laptop this size (although the Vye S37 has a 1024 resolution and also has a 7 inch screen).

Here’s an example of browsing on the Eee using it’s default browser Firefox (Mozilla) :

The keyboard is obviously small which results in a slower typing speed. Some of the keys (like the return and space bar) are a little too small for my liking. I don’t think I would ever use the Eee to type for a long time so it isn’t going to be a major concern for me and there is always the option of hooking up a usb keyboard or even a portable bluetooth keyboard if travelling.

I think the Eee is going to prove to be great for watching movies on and for messaging. The speakers are louder than I thought they would be and the webcam is very impressive. Perhaps my expectations were low for the Eee but I have to say I am pretty impressed with it so far.

Right out of the box you only have 1.368gb left for storage but the SD card slot allows you to back everything to that (I’ve got an 8gbSDHC). Also, there are 3 usb ports so hooking up an external usb drive will be simple too.

Upgrading the Ram to 2gb

The 4gb Eee 701 comes with 512 mb of RAM however it is upgradeable to 2gb. The upgrade was ridiculously easy, all I had to two was unscrew 2 screws and insert the 2gb RAM stick (here’s a video explaining how). Asus had put a sticker over one of the screws which usually means your warranty will be voided if it is removed but they confirmed recently this is not the case.

Although the bios recognises the ram upgrade right away, the default Xandros installation has a limit of 1gb in it’s kernal. This means you need to either change your operating system or update the kernal. Thankfully, Eeeuser has a guide explaining exactly what you need to do. I’ll do this in the next few days when I get some time

Overview

I’ve only had the Eee a few hours but my initial impressions of the laptop are very good. It’s not the most powerful notebook you can get but it’s not meant to be your main pc and does everything I bought it for and for 250 quid, how can anyone complain.

I am going to mess around with it a lot over the next week to get to know it better but I feel safe in saying that if you are looking for a budget laptop for travelling or even one for using around the house to browse the net or watch movies, the Eee should definately be on your shopping list.

If you have any questions about the Eee, please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer them.

cheers,
Kev

I finally gave in and jumped on the Eee PC bandwagon. For those who don’t know, the Eee PC is a cheap sub notebook with a 7 inch screen, a solid state hard drive and a 900 Mhz celeron m processor. It comes bundled with linux (Xandros) however it’s cable of running XP quite well if you remove all the bloatware from it.

Why I am buying a portable laptop?

I bought the Sony Vaio VGN T2XP 3 years ago whilst travelling in the USA. It was a really small notebook which whilst wasn’t very powerful, was light, had great battery life and was all in all a great little machine. Infact, it was the laptop I used when I went travelling for 8 months round Asia and Australasia. Being the nice guy I am, I gave the laptop to my brother last year as I wasn’t using it much after coming back travelling

The Sony Vaio VGN T2XP

I currently own a 15.4″ Asus G1 laptop (it’s the machine I use every day). It’s a good machine with a decent spec but it’s heavy and not suitable for travelling. With an upcoming trip to New York looming I thought it was time to get a new device which I can use to take travelling and also something I can browse the net about the house (10 of us are going to New York for a week to celebrate St Paddys day – its going to be bedlam!!).

The Asus G1

My favourite portable laptop is the Sony TZ. The machine had just been released when I was in Japan last year and they were displaying it everywhere in the Sony building. Alas, at the moment I’m looking for something cheaper….I’ll maybe treat myself to one later in the year!!

Why the Eee PC?

I’m a bit of a gadget geek and read a lot of gadget and tech sites on a regular basis. I considered a lot of sub notebooks and UMPC’s and read loads of reviews. Here are some of the machines I considered (I’ve put a link to Expansys for each machine just incase your nosy!)

Belinea S Book – Released in America by Everest as the cloudbook, this is a good value laptop but it’s ugly and had a pointless and poor voip phone attached to it.
HTC Shift – Looks like a good device but way too expensive in my opinion.
Vye S37B – Great little device but it’s a tad expensive for what you get and the battery sticks out at the back way too much.
Samsung Q1 – Another cool device but I was looking for something with an inbuilt keyboard.

In the end the Eee had just about everything I was looking for and it’s really cheap too. The 8gb eee has just been released in Taiwan. PurelyGadgets are now selling them for £344.95 and I was very close to ordering it. The reason I didnt is because I couldn’t decide on the colour haha. To be honest, I’m not that superficial but i was concerned the white version would be a dirt magnet and the eee also has black speakers on the inside so the black looks better in that respect. After reading threads about it on the eeeuser forums I decided to call it a night, get some sleep and make a decision in the morning.

The Asus EEE PC

When I logged on in the morning I noticed that Ebuyer had the 4gb version for £249.99. 250 quid is actually 10 to 20 pounds more expensive than most other uk shops but (a) no one else had them in stock and (b) ebuyer is one of my favourite sites who always take returns back with no hassle or problems. At nearly £100 more for the new 8gb version I just couldn’t justify getting it. Also, the 8gb would have a US based keyboard layout and the warranty wouldn’t last as long. The funny thing is, after swaying between the black or white version for hours and finally decided on the black version, ebuyer only had the white version in stock!! Oh well

I’ve also bought a 2gb stick of corsair ram (the device comes with 512mb) to improve performance and an 8GB high capacity CD card for storage. The eee comes with a case but it isn’t the best so I’ll probably get a better one to keep the eee clean. When it arrives in a few days I’ll post a review of it and give you more details about the device. If anyone has any questions to ask about the eee please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer it in my review.

Cheers,
Kevin